Journeys Into Nights
by MiladyGirl
Summary: Ignoring Theresa's actual fate in the show. At the big party in the end of season 1, Theresa and Bernard watch events unfold from a secluded place, and it's quickly becoming clear that it's up to them - neither exactly a soldier - to either set things right or die trying. T for now, will change later.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**

This story began with me picturing the exact scene described right at the beginning. It intrigued me, because as much as I enjoy the Bernard/Theresa pairing, I've always pictured it as a side-line of actual events, but this was an event from the show, only Theresa wasn't present for it. So it starts at a sort-of canon spot and deviates heavily from there. Currently more of an adventure fic. Will later feature both sex and violence.

The muse very much appreciates comments. It always helps knowing you're not the only weirdo having fun with the story just because you're the weirdo writing it. :P

(Also, I feel like I have to mention this in case there are any horse people reading - I have a horse myself and my approach to her isn't like the approach characters have in this fic, or in this show, for that matter. She's my sweetheart, NOT a means of transportation, and certainly not a monstrous beast. Well, okay. She has been known to be the latter, when she was young. :D )

* * *

Theresa Cullen shivered slightly in the cool evening breeze. She had stepped away from the crowd to have a smoke – not that anyone really cared, several of the board members smoked by the tables, but she wanted a moment to herself. She had a bad feeling about this evening, but nothing concrete to pin that bad feeling on. Things had gone smoothly. Maybe that was the problem; it had gone a bit _too_ smoothly. In Theresa's experience, if a plan went without a hitch, it was generally the prelude to a shitstorm of epic proportions.

Charlotte Hale caught her eye from her table, giving her a flash of that smug, arrogant smile that Theresa wanted nothing more than to permanently wipe off her face. Talk about old mistakes returning to haunt you. For a brief moment Theresa considered flipping Charlotte the bird, but the impulse wasn't meant seriously; she preferred to still have a job tomorrow, and she most certainly preferred to still have a _life_ tomorrow. But it was a bit tempting nevertheless.

She took a deep drag on her cigarette, exhaling aromatic smoke that mixed with the smells of desert and of the dinner that had just been served outside.

And the scent of a cologne she knew intimately.

"Hello Bernie," she said without turning around. "Didn't think you'd find me over here."

"I'd find you anywhere," he replied as he came up to her, handing her a glass of champagne. "You don't look like you're celebrating," he continued. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Theresa said, nodded her thanks for the champagne, and took a sip. The pale sparkly liquid felt like it went straight to her head. "I just have this strange feeling."

"As if things are going a bit too well?" Bernard asked, and she looked up at him, surprised. "Yeah, I feel it too. It's like a storm is approaching."

He chuckled as if he was worried Theresa would mock him for it, but she merely finished her cigarette and said;

"That's exactly how I'm feeling, too. Doesn't appear to be a storm coming, though, does it?"

She gestured to the scene, where the board and other distinguished guests enjoyed the finest wine and finest food, Ford was getting ready to make his speech, and here and there, various hosts around for the fancy occasion. Theresa wondered. Did they know where they were? Did they know this was out of the ordinary for them? Or did the programming tell them this was perfectly normal, this was how their entire life looked like? All lives have repetition, and all that bullshit? She assumed that was how it was for them, but she couldn't imagine what it would be like.

"No," Bernard said, then he sighed heavily. "But there is a reason for the saying 'calm before the storm' too, isn't there?"

"I guess," Theresa replied and sipped her champagne again. "I'm _so_ uneasy," she admitted, shuddering a little. "The past couple of weeks have been…"

"Weird," they said in unison, then looked at each other and laughed.

"First there was that software glitch when you updated the hosts…" Theresa began.

"…and then the stray. And the uplink to that Delos satellite, that seemed to lead to…" he cleared his throat and broke eye contact.

"To me," Theresa filled in for him. "You can just say it. I still can't figure out who could have gotten hold of my security codes, but I know for sure I wasn't the one sending those payloads."

"I know. It really feels like somebody's trying to sabotage," Bernard said. "You wouldn't think it, looking at Ford though. He seems to take everything in stride."

"Hm, yes, he does," Theresa said, furrowing her brow. Bernard raised a hand and traced his fingertips across her forehead, a touch tender as the breeze.

"The movement of these fine muscles here is killing me," he said. "So beautiful."

"You know," Theresa said, gently pushing his hand away, "my previous partners have admired my breasts, my legs, even my eyes, but I don't think anyone has complimented me on my wrinkles before."

"Oh I'm not complimenting your wrinkles," he began, and Theresa flashed a smile at him before shaking her head.

"Bernie, you're never supposed to admit that a woman _has_ them," she said, but there was more laughter than blame in her voice.

"You didn't let me finish," he said calmly. "I'm complimenting the way your face mirrors your thoughts and feelings. Wrinkles are just a side effect of authenticity."

She opened her mouth to reply but realised she had no words to reply with. Bernard's sweet smile turned smug.

"Did I just render you speechless?" he asked.

"Let's say if we were alone, I'd retaliate," she replied. "Hard."

"Oh, now I can't wait for this party to be over," Bernard said.

"Neither can I."

They stayed in their little hiding spot in the shadows between two buildings, watching the illuminated scene before them. Theresa looked from one host to the other. Forever young, they were. Eternally beautiful. And always prisoners, even if they were unaware themselves, Theresa had time to think before one host, Dolores, broke her chain and stepped out of her prison.

Robert Ford stood upright for a moment while the echo of the shot rumbled back and forth between the house façades of Main Street, then he fell forward. As the less impressive sound of the emperor's physical fall followed the gunshot, the guests started looking around, not certain if it was part of the show or the start of a nightmare.

"What the _hell_ …?" Bernard mumbled. Theresa said nothing. She stood frozen in horror as the rich people's party transformed into a shooting gallery, when host after host drew weapon and turned on the guests.

It seemed the storm was upon them after all.

* * *

It was only the secluded spot Theresa had chosen to smoke her cigarette that saved both their lives; as none of the guests turned in that direction to flee, and so the hosts didn't turn in that direction either.

Charlotte Hale and Lee Sizemore avoided being shot by Angela, and ran to the cover of a barn together with two other men and three women. One of the women didn't make it. She stumbled when she tried to keep up, was shot in the back, and fell face down into the dusty street.

Bernard took out his phone to call for the QA to send a response team, but it was offline. He was about to inform Theresa about this when the streetlights went out as well, leaving the scene ghostly lit by candles and occasional gun flares. The hosts were now shooting blindly, but judging from the thuds and groans from those hit, they were hellishly good shots even in the dark.

"We need to get back to the mesa," Theresa said.

"We have to help…" Bernard began, gesturing weakly towards the band of victims laid out on the street.

"No time," Theresa said, turning away from the carnage. God, she was squeamish about blood. She could hide it when it was fake blood – host blood, to be precise – but real blood… she felt the world starting to fade, as if she was about to faint.

 _Oh for the love of God, pull yourself together!_ she thought harshly and gave herself a resounding slap in the face. Bernard stared at her as if she had gone completely insane, but at least her thoughts cleared.

"We need to contact the QA, have them send a fully armoured response team. Sharpshooters," she said, relieved to hear that her voice sounded steady at least.

"Are you alright?" Bernard asked. That was the closest thing to 'why the hell did you just slap yourself in the face?' that he got, and she wasn't addressing it at all.

"I'm fine. The Sweetwater control outpost is west of town, right?"

"About half a mile, yes."

She grabbed his arm.

"Come on, then," she said, and they both dropped their champagne glasses as they hurried further into the shadows.

* * *

"I don't understand this," Bernard said as they got away from the commotion. "They're not supposed to be able to hurt any living thing."

"Yet you code some of them to be murderous fucks," Theresa said, hitching up the long burgundy skirt to walk more freely, although with five-inch heels, that was probably the least of her problems, which Bernard had already figured out.

"Yes, but they're only coded to be able to hurt other hosts," he said contemplatively. "Take those shoes off, you can't walk in them."

"I can, and I will, because I'd rather twist my ankle than step on a scorpion or a snake barefoot," Theresa said in a that's-that voice, and Bernard shrugged.

"Suit yourself."

"That's what I did, and right now I wish I hadn't," Theresa said, pulling at her dress skirt again. "What was I thinking? I've worn pantsuits to events before, what on Earth possessed me to squeeze into this vintage Valentino this time?"

"Wanted to impress someone?" he asked.

"Maybe," she said reluctantly, and then she switched subject again, as if he had touched a tender spot. "The hosts are obviously able to hurt people now. How?"

"I don't know."

"Something wrong with the programming? A malware code?"

"We would have noticed malware code before tonight, Behaviour ran diagnostics on all the present hosts to make sure there was not a single glitch in any of them for the big event."

"Good fucking job," Theresa stated.

"Thank you, may I remind you that _your_ team was responsible for double-checking our job," he replied.

"I didn't get any reports of problems from my people."

"Neither did I."

They exchanged glances, and what might have turned into a fight was laid to rest just like that. They couldn't put the blame on each other, and what was going on was still a mystery.

* * *

They kept walking. At this point, Theresa panted loudly.

"You need to cut down on the cigarettes," Bernard said, helpfully, in his own opinion, though maybe not in Theresa's.

"Oh please," she wheezed. "If I hadn't been smoking, we'd be in that pile of dead bodies now."

"True." He looked around. "The outpost should be here somewhere… ah, over there!"

Theresa had already spotted it and headed towards it without comment, which could either be because she was a bit annoyed with his interference in her vice, or simply because she was too out of breath to talk and walk at the same time. He decided it was probably the latter.

In the dreamy moonlight, the deep burgundy shade of her dress looked like dried blood. He used to love the colour red on her, but this felt like a bad omen.

When he caught up with her, she was punching the display.

"It's offline," she said, annoyed, walked halfway around the small rock formation and began tearing at it with her fingers.

"What are you…?" he began.

"Manual override," she clipped.

"Is there a reason you know about this feature and I don't?" he asked. Theresa blew a strand of sweaty hair out of her face.

"Delos employed me. Ford employed you. Delos… like to have backdoors into things." She stepped back, putting her hands on her hips. "Not that it matters right now. It's locked from the inside." She shook her head. "The fuck is going on here?" she whispered, mostly to herself, and sat down on the rock, trying to catch her breath again.

Bernard came and sat down next to her. He absent-mindedly ran his hand across her back, as much to get comfort as to give it.

"I've been thinking," he said. "Do you believe Ford might be behind all this?"

"Suicide by host?" Theresa said sceptically. "On one hand it would fit his flair for the dramatic, but, really…?" she sighed. "You knew him better than I did, Bernie. Would he really do that?"

Bernard considered carefully before replying.

"No. Flair for the dramatic, no doubt, but I knew him as the kind of man who has to know how it ends."

"Well, that was the end as far as he was concerned," Theresa deadpanned, took out a cigarette and lit it. This time Bernard refrained from questioning her habit.

"I mean the kind of man who always needs to finish one more chapter. Not content with cliff-hangers that stays unresolved, and he would _never_ willingly walk away from a story not knowing how it ends."

Theresa processed the information, smoked and watched the stars appear one by one in the black skies above them. Bernard watched her profile instead. She might be used to partners focusing on her breasts or legs – and he certainly agreed they were admirable – but he noticed the subtle, unique features of her face more; the fine muscles of her brow, the elegant shape of her nose, the dimples only showing when she smiled broadly. He had always been a man more apt at noticing small details than bigger pictures.

"No, I agree," Theresa eventually said. "If it were the end of a story, a grand finale, then yes, but…" the cigarette's end glowed in the dark as she took another drag, "… the beginning of a story he'd never see the end of?" She shook her head. "Since we're talking a literal life or death narrative here… no. I can't see Ford deliberately removing himself permanently from an ongoing and improvised narrative. No. Not a chance."

Bernard nodded, taking in her thoughts without adding anything else.

They sat in silence while Theresa finished the cigarette. To the east there was still some gunfire, but now it was more sporadic.

"He wasn't well though, you know. Ford."

This was news to Theresa, who thought that for a man well into his eighties, Ford had seemed almost eerily well. Nearly immortal.

"What do you mean?"

"Cancer."

"It's treatable nowadays. 100 % recovery rate."

"He wasn't going to get treatment. He said he wanted to stay of clear mind."

"So now the 'suicide by host'-scenario doesn't seem as unlikely anymore," Theresa said, rubbing her temples. "But why would he unleash a massacre, even if he wanted to go out in dramatic fashion?"

"Don't know."

"So what now, then?"

"Well, I guess we have to get back the conventional way," Bernard said. Theresa looked down at her stilettos.

"Walking? I'll need to find better shoes, I don't know if I can walk all the way back to the mesa in these."

"I was thinking horseback," he said, pointing towards a lone piebald mare wandering about, fully equipped but without a rider. Guests frequently left their horses wandering around, and the recovery teams were nowhere near as efficient at getting them as they were getting the human hosts. "Much faster."

"I can't ride," Theresa objected, but Bernard had already left her and walked towards the animal. He examined it, took the reins and returned to the rock with the horse in tow. Theresa had crossed her arms, striking a defensive pose.

"I can't ride," she repeated. "I'm serious Bernard, I can't get much closer than this. I'm allergic to horses."

He smiled and tilted his head to the side as if saying _you're joking, right?_

"Not to these, you aren't."

Oh. Right. These animals were so lifelike she kept forgetting they weren't in fact real.

"I didn't know you knew how to ride," she said.

"I didn't know you were allergic to horses," he said. "Does that make us even when it comes to not knowing things about each other?"

Theresa shrugged a little.

Bernard checked the saddlebag and found both water and booze, a coarse blanket, and a fully loaded revolver. He made sure the girth was tightly fit, mounted swiftly, then walked the animal up to Theresa.

"It seems human hosts are the only ones exhibiting the hostile behaviour."

Theresa turned in the direction of Sweetwater, where something was on fire, judging from the pillar of rising smoke.

"Yeah, I'm not sure I want to test that hypothesis right now, but we need to get to the mesa and get QA to send a response team asap, so I suppose we have to take our chances with this monstrous beast," she said.

"Don't mock our means of transportation," he replied and helped dragging her up on the animal's back. When she tried to adjust her dress skirt, she nearly fell over on the other side, and let out a little yelp as she grabbed Bernard by the waist to regain her balance.

"For someone able to walk in those heels, your balance isn't very impressive," he teased.

"Watch it Bernard, from where I'm sitting, I have the perfect position to grab your neck and strangle you."

He laughed.

"Which would leave you alone to steer this 'monstrous beast'."

She couldn't find a good response, so she stayed quiet. Bernard looked over his shoulder.

"Don't tell me I rendered you speechless again? You're losing your touch, Tess."

"Just make this damn thing move, if you know how," she muttered. She kept expecting her eyes to swell shut and her throat to itch, but of course nothing happened. The fur on this creature was purely synthetic. It looked real, acted real, but it _wasn't_ real. Just like the human hosts weren't real.

So what had allowed them to breach their programming? Which begged a bigger question. _Had_ they breached their programming, or had they simply been re-programmed? And if so, by whom?

"Sitting comfortably?" Bernard asked as he made the horse walk forward.

"No. But let's go, before those rogue hosts figure out two of their intended victims are missing."

"Agreed," he said and clicked his tongue. The horse broke into a trot and then into canter, and in the rhythm of the canter, Theresa found some kind of peace. She leaned her head against Bernard's shoulder, allowing herself a moment to wish they could just keep riding, leaving all this behind and starting over new somewhere else.

Not that it was going to happen, of course. It seemed there was a war to be fought before anyone could leave, and while Bernard apparently could surprise, Theresa didn't believe either of them made a very good soldier. They were desk people. They weren't cut out for physical fight or tactical decisions. But of course, if they could only make it back and report this, trained security personnel would take over. Heavily armed, Kevlar-vested security personnel.

So why did that bad feeling still linger, as if the nightmare had only just begun?


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**

I apologise for taking so long, I had to rewrite the chapter as it didn't work for me, and I still don't really like it. I thought about scrapping it altogether and move on to the next, but then I decided to upload it anyway so those of you who follow the story have _something_ to read. 😊 The next chapter will contain less talk and more action, promise.

* * *

"I can _feel_ your teeth chattering," Bernard said a while later. "Do you want the blanket?"

"Y-yes p-please," Theresa replied. She had tried to be a trooper, but she was freezing, and maybe it was no wonder; the dress was sleeveless, backless, and had a deep décolletage. Why was women's clothing always more uncomfortable than men's? And more importantly, why hadn't she picked something at least a little bit more comfortable?

Oh, but she knew why. This was the nicest dress she owned, and she still had that same insecure streak that had almost been her undoing eight years ago.

Bernard halted the horse, took out the blanket, and handed it to her. Theresa swept it around her, wincing a bit at the coarse fabric against her bare skin first, but it was wool, and she felt warmer right away.

"Thank you," she said, leaning over his shoulder and giving him a quick kiss. "Bernie?"

"Mhm?"

" _Thank you_."

"I heard you the first time," he said, smiling. "You're welcome."

"This time it was for coming after me when I left the crowd to have a smoke. I don't know what I'd done if you had been caught in that massacre," she said quietly. "I think I might just have sat down and waited for them to get me too."

"No, you're too tough for that. You would've moved on."

"By now, you should know that I'm not as tough as I try to pretend outwardly."

"I think you sell yourself short," he replied. "Ready to keep going?"

"Yeah."

And so they kept going, riding along the railroad tracks that vaguely reflected the moonlight. It was like moving through a dream.

 _Do you know where you are?_

 _I am in a dream._

Theresa shuddered again, despite the warmth of the blanket. No, the hosts had never been in a dream, they were caught in a nightmare, and it seemed they weren't willing to stay there any longer. She wasn't sure how she felt about them, about the _realness_ of them, but she had always found it unpleasant, this whole idea of creating lifelike human robots to rape and mutilate and kill. What did that say about actual humans? Nothing flattering, that was one thing for sure.

"So who were you trying to impress with that dress anyway?" Bernard asked. "I know it wasn't me."

"No, to do that, I just need something see-through," she said playfully. "Because you're _too_ easily impressed, Mr Lowe."

"And you're avoiding the question. Was it Charlotte Hale?"

Theresa's heart nearly stopped.

"Why would I want to impress her?"

"You tell me."

"I don't give a fuck about Charlotte Hale," Theresa lied, remembering the gentle kisses that could turn into blood-drawing bites without warning. She had been addicted to and terrified of those nights, and when finally deprived of them, she had been both relieved and desperate to get them back – the very nature of self-destructive compulsions, she assumed. But what had happened between her and Miss Hale had happened a long time ago, and she had moved past all that. Hadn't she?

"Don't you?" Bernard replied, unknowingly mirroring the unsettling thought process in her own head.

"Other than the fact that I prefer not to get fired, no." To her own ears, her voice had just the right balance between indifference and slight annoyance. Though Bernard might hear something more; he was alarmingly talented at reading her. She went on, hoping to distract him from the subject. "Although after this shitstorm, I expect to be. Either by her, if she's even still alive, or by whoever is in charge when this is over."

"You didn't program the hosts. That's on Behaviour and Narrative," he said. "What happened is not your fault."

"It wasn't my fault, but it was my responsibility," she said. "I'm the head of Quality Assurance. It's my responsibility to keep people safe in the park, guests and employees, and…" she sighed and chose not to finish the sentence. "If anyone out there is still alive, we need to get someone out to help them."

"We will."

"What the hell is going on?" she said. "Like you said a few weeks ago, the park hasn't had a critical failure in over 30 years. So why now?"

He turned around so he could look at her.

"I have no idea."

Her eyes met his and she felt that jolt of attraction again. Every damn time she looked him in the eyes she wanted to shamelessly throw herself at him. It wasn't very ladylike, and it was certainly not how she had been brought up – her mother would have been horrified, but then again, her mother had been a raging racist, so she would have been horrified either way – but Theresa wasn't aiming to live according to anyone else's expectations. She had more than enough trying to deal with her own problems, she didn't need anyone else's on top of that.

What she did need, she saw in Bernard's eyes. They still kept up the pretence that this was a simple affair, a 'friends with benefits' kind of deal, but what she saw in his eyes, what she felt in her heart, that was a bit more fundamental. That was love. It was terrifying.

And it was wonderful.

"Bernie?"

"Yes?"

"Kiss me."

He smiled.

"I'd be happy to."

When he kissed her, she could relax and lose herself in the feeling, not having to be prepared for sudden pain. So she supposed there was one thing that her strange months with Charlotte had taught her; to appreciate gentleness.

Despite how good the kiss was, her mind wandered back to when she had first been hired by Delos… and had her bizarre fling with Charlotte Hale.

It had been a messy year. She had just gotten through a nasty divorce when Charlotte came into the picture, and she supposed that had plenty to do with how easily she had been swept off her feet. She had been emotionally raw, and Charlotte was a natural predator. Theresa had been flattered that a young beauty – Charlotte had only been twenty-seven at the time - would take an interest in a worn, divorced woman who had somehow, without even noticing, crossed the line into her middle age.

Maybe it _had_ been nothing but a bout of middle age crisis. Oh, if only she could convince herself of that. But it had felt more like being under a spell, a victim of some powerful, malevolent magic. Charlotte hadn't been interested in love, and it had later dawned on Theresa that it wasn't sex either; what Charlotte truly desired was to hurt her. Theresa wasn't at all opposed to a bit of rough sex now and then, but it stopped being fun when it actually hurt or became humiliating, and with Charlotte it had quickly descended into both.

Bernard was something completely different. The way he cared about her was something she had never expected to experience. She wondered why she had to meet him this late in life and in a situation where they couldn't openly date. But she was grateful to have met him at all. He was kind and thoughtful and had a calming influence on her tattered nerves. He had a quiet but intelligent sense of humour.

 _And_ he was damn good in the sack, at that.

She slowly broke off the kiss, knowing that if she allowed it to go on it would lead to actions they had no time for at the moment.

"You were a million miles away just now," Bernard said. Theresa shook her head.

"No. I'm right here with you. And that's where I want to be."

He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, softly, before turning forward and urging the horse on again. They moved slower now, as the ground on the sides of the tracks fell away into a modest ravine. The moonlight shadows were sharp but somehow still hazy. It was difficult to tell distances.

"How much further do you think it is?" she asked.

"A few miles? It's hard to tell."

"I can't wait to get off."

Bernard turned and gave her a mischievous glance.

"Very funny," she said and rolled her eyes, but she was nevertheless unable to hold back a smile.

"I didn't say a thing."

"You can say plenty without using words. It wasn't an innuendo." She pursed her lips. "Well, it was, but it was unintentional. Why do I even _think_ about that kind of thing in a situation like this?!"

"Stress response," Bernard said. "Same reason you want to smoke."

"How sexy," Theresa said, and the sarcasm was laid on thick as bricks.

"If it makes you feel any better, I want to take you to bed right now too."

"I'm not sure I even need a bed."

" _Figuratively_ ," Bernard said in a patiently amused tone.

For a second Theresa thought about throwing cation overboard, dismount the horse, get Bernard on the ground and mount _him_ , and get this fucking urge out of the way so she – so _they_ – could think clearly.

Then her deep-rooted sense of duty kicked in, and she abandoned the idea, but not without regret.

"I guess that has to wait until later," she said with a wistful sigh.

"Yes," Bernard agreed, but he sounded as wistful as she did.

"Do you see something over there, or am I hallucinating?" Theresa asked, pointing ahead to a darkness darker than the night, rising against the black skies. "Is that the mesa?"

"I think so. Yes. Just a couple of miles left."

"Thank God."

"I take it horseback riding wasn't for you, then?" he said with a smirk.

"Tell you what, take me out riding some day when the fucking apocalypse isn't in full swing, and I'll re-evaluate."

He chuckled and spurred the horse into canter again.

The desert was wide-stretched, but it still felt like the darkness was closing in on them, and while neither wanted to voice such a ridiculous thought out loud, both felt it. It felt like they were heading into disaster rather than escaping from it.


End file.
